Your Detour
by GaleSynch
Summary: Sirius waits and waits for Andromeda to come, but she never did—Sirius, Andromeda and that winter night from what seemed to be centuries ago. 24/100.


**Your Detour**

**oOo**

Three hours.

That's how long Sirius waits for somebody to come for him.

He's eight and he hates the darkness, and the cold seeping into his very bones that's made his whole body go numb. Sirius' teeth chatter as the hail outside roars, loud and threatening. Sirius is starting to regret ever insinuating this Muggle game he's heard: Hide-and-Seek. Bella delights in it as he knows she would with her predatory nature of cornering people. But she's left with a bawling Regulus earlier, looking extremely disgruntled when she's forced to give the young boy a piggy-back ride as he's broken his ankle and Bella can't use magic to heal it.

Cousin Narcissa hates getting sweaty and she likes dancing and girly-girl stuff so she doesn't join her sisters and all-boys cousins in their little game. Sirius doesn't waste a second harboring hope for her to come for him. He wraps his arms around his torso, curling further in on himself.

He's hiding, Andy's seeking and he isn't sure whether Bella rejoins the game or not, but he hopes she has because then, the chances of being found in this stupid Muggle-warehouse will be higher. He's stuck and he doesn't know any magic that can get him out. Sirius' magic only comes when he's angry, not when he's cold, miserable and freaking hungry.

Sirius tries to move his legs but he can't even feel them anymore. "This," he promises himself, voicing his thoughts loudly, "is the last time I'm playing Muggle games. They're stupid and life-threatening."

Bella and everyone else will probably agree. But not Andy—she's always been different. She'll probably say—

"The game's not stupid, you're the one who's silly enough to get yourself stuck."

Sirius turns. The voice is muffled through the wooden layers but he's sure that the voice belongs to Andromeda and he's not just hallucinating. He's so relieved he can almost cry but he doesn't because he won't permit himself to act like less of a brave man in front of his favorite cousin.

"Move over if you're in front of the door, I'm going to kick it down!"

Through sheer willpower and the overwhelming need to see his cousin, Sirius pushes himself away from the door and staggers far enough.

There's the sound of footsteps impacting with snow and Sirius can just imagine Andromeda—who's not permitted to use magic either—taking a running leap at the door and sure enough, the wooden door crashes.

Sirius is sure he's read something like this valiant rescue in Muggle stories he's managed to get his hands on (thanks to his uncle Alphard), but he's sure it's the other way around where the boy rescues the girl instead of the other way around. As Andromeda piggy-backs him back home, he tells her this, feeling his cheeks flush in embarrassment at how pathetic his situation has been.

Had it been Bella, she would've laughed. But Andy didn't as she's always been different in that pleasant way of hers. She smiles, instead, and says, "It doesn't matter. Just know I'll always be there for you. If you're gone, I'll definitely go looking for you. Just wait for me, okay? 'Cause if I'm later, I just had a little detour."

Sirius' cheeks are surely frozen, but when his favorite cousin (who's skin is almost blue and her hair's practically white from all the snowflakes and snow) turns with some difficulty to look at him, he feels his lips stretching into a grin.

"I'll wait forever!"

* * *

_naive_

* * *

**oOo**

Twelve years.

That's how long Sirius has waited. Sirius gazes at the dark room of his old home. His childhood home where there's mostly the bad in more recent years but there's also the good too. Before Hogwarts and Gryffindor and the Marauders. Sirius can still remember, if he strains his memory hard enough, infuriating his parents and aunt and uncle by chasing little Reg all around the house, upturning household objects, terrifying his crybaby brother and girly Cousin Cissy into tears with Bella who'd be cackling like a mad loon.

And Cousin Andromeda would be able to put a stop to what she calls bullying with a stern glare and hands on her hips that turn Bella and Sirius away from Reg and Cissy who cower heroically behind her taller and bigger form.

It almost brings a smile to Sirius' face. Almost because, looking at what happened to that group of three girls and two boys—("Family forever, we'll always watch one another's back, it's the promise of a lifetime!")—and Sirius snorts.

"Family forever," he repeats the long-forgotten promise from one winter night where all five of them huddle together because the cold's unbearable and their parents won't hear of their whining. "What a joke."

Bella's a Death Eater who's lost her sanity; Cissy's a cold-hearted Malfoy; Reggie six feet under somewhere because search as Sirius might, he can't find his baby brother's corpse; Sirius, a broken man who's lost all smiles and laughter and joy from the twelve years in Azkaban; and Andy—

"It's not a joke. We're the ones who forgot about it."

Sirius stiffens from the sudden sense of deja vu, before he turns, looking into the well-loved face that's lined now, that's a little worn and old and less full of life and joy from before, and there's a few strands of gray there but she's still his cousin Andromeda.

_It's winter_, Sirius thinks numbly as he stands, looking past Andy's shoulder where the snow howls, as if trying to compare to the turmoil of bitterness, anger, grief and wistfulness within Sirius. And Sirius remembers then, the night so many years ago when he's trapped himself and Andy's the only one who came, the only one who didn't stop searching—

"What took you so long this time around?" he whispers, standing stiff as board and he can't be sure because only sissies cry and even after all this years, he still wants Andy to know he's a brave man, so he doesn't know whether he's crying or not but Andy's face is streaked with tears.

"I'm sorry it took me so long," she sobs, crossing the distance between them and throwing her arms around him.

Sirius instinctively buries his face in the crook of her neck, needing to bend slightly because he's taller than she is now and has been for some time now. She still smells the same of lavender and home and all those happy days where he's just an ignorant little brat who thinks he can conquer the world as long as he has his cousins and brother by his side. He brings his arms around her, inhaling her scent and the memories he thought lost to the Dementors come rushing back and—

"It'll be okay."

_We'd mend; you'd help me pick up the pieces and patch them together, right? Just like how we used to piece those Muggle puzzles together in the dark?_

**oOo**

* * *

_Andromeda has always been Sirius' favorite cousin..._


End file.
